Pacific Island Blue Carbon Knowledge Exchange Network (PIBLUEX)
Pacific Island blue
Pacific Island blue
PIBLUEX is a Palau lead effort to map and monitor Blue Carbon Ecosystems at the national level in Pacific Island countries. The aerial extent and carbon stocks of mangroves and seagrass ecosystem, the two key Pacific Island BCEs, can be used in national communications, NDCs, SDGs, or as baseline information to pursue carbon markets. PIBLUEX currently consists of a Blue Carbon Dream Team comprised of Palauans, Fijans, and Samaoans, who worked together in April of 2024 to map Palau’s mangroves and seagrasses as well as quantify their carbon stocks.
Implementing institution and partners involved in the project
"Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries, and the Environment, Division of Land, Forest, and Water Management. PALARIS, and US Forest Service are the implementing institution, partners include Fiji Forestry, Fiji Fisheries, Samoa’s Ministry of Fisheries, Samoa’s MNRE, University of the South Pacific, Conservation International, National University of Samoa, Samoa Conservation Society."
Funders of the project
"US Department of State and the US Forest Service"
Achievements & indicators
We were able to come up with aerial extent numbers of mangroves and seagrasses and are still working up the carbon stock data. One thing that initially resulted from this work was the extensive distribution of dwarf mangroves around Palau. We were also able to calculate carbon gains for the mangroves. On average, Palau’s 5688 ha of mangroves remove 19.8 Mg CO2e/ha/yr. Tall mangroves remove 7.3 Mg CO2e/ha/yr, while dwarf mangroves remove 32.0 Mg CO2e/ha/yr. Still working on seagrass data.
Any additional information you believe would be valuable to highlight – I am also the contact person for this. The attention we are trying to draw is to get buy in from other Pacific Islands as well as identify funds that could support this in the future. Remeasuring these plots is needed to generate the carbon gains (or losses) that we have for Palau. We are planning on taking the team to Samoa next year and then Fiji the following year.
The project was able to come up with aerial extent numbers of mangroves and seagrasses and are still working up the carbon stock data. One thing that initially resulted from this work was the extensive distribution of dwarf mangroves around Palau. Researchers were able to calculate carbon gains for the mangroves. On average, Palau’s 5688 ha of mangroves remove 19.8 Mg CO2e/ha/yr. Tall mangroves remove 7.3 Mg CO2e/ha/yr, while dwarf mangroves remove 32.0 Mg CO2e/ha/yr. Still working on seagrass data.
Remeasuring these plots is needed to generate the carbon gains (or losses) available in Palau.
